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John J. Ingalls 

HIS LIFE, HIS PUBLIC SERVICES, AND HIS 
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 

A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

BY 

GRANVILLE H. MEIXELL 

M.A. (VANDERBILT) 

PROFESSOR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND 

LITERATURE, HISTORY, ECONOMICS, 

AND SOCIAL SCIENCE IN 

MIDLAND COLLEGE 



PRESS OF 

The Home Printing Company 

Atchison, Kansas 

1896 



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\%l\~ 



I 



tk 



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Copyright, 1896 
By GRANVILLE H. MEIXELL 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



bt 2 



TO 

MRS. JOHN J. INGALLS 

IN 

GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE 

OF THE 

KIND AND GENEROUS SERVICE RENDERED 

TO THE AUTHOR IN ITS PREPARATION, 

THIS BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

IS MOST RESPECTFULLY 

DEDICATED 



PRE FA TOR Y NO TE 

This essay appeared in substantially the same 
form in the issues of The Midland for March 
and April, 1896, and met with the approval 
of those whose opinion and judgment deserve 
the highest consideration. It is believed that 
this sketch forms the most co?uplete and sym- 
metrical single account of the life, public ser- 
vices, and personal characteristics of John J. 
Ingalls, that has yet been published; and it is, 
therefore, now reprinted and re-issued in more 
convenient shape. 

Granville H. Meixell. 



Midland College, 
Atchison, Kansas, 
April 15, 1896. 



CONTENTS 

PAGK 

Introduction 9 

His Ancestry.. n 

JiiRTH and Early Life.. 13 

At College 14 

After Graduation 15 

Emigration West. 16 

Early Political Career 17 

Early Literary Efforts 18 

Suggests Great Seal 19 

Election to the Senate 21 

career in the Senate 22 

Honored by his Colleagues 24 

Speeches in the Senate 26 

Command of Language 27 

Oratorical Style.. 28 

Literary Style 30 

♦'A Statesman without a Job" 33 

Writes for the Press 34 

His Essays 35 

As a Platform Lecturer 35 

Personal Traits 37 

literary Tastes 39 

" Oak Ridge " 39 

Conclusion 41 



" History is the essence of 
innumerable Biographies."— Carlyle. 



John J. Ingalls 



A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



GRANVILLE H. MEIXELL 






w Ar 



JOHN j. INGALLS 




JOHN J INGALLS 

"rom his latest photograph by Kleckner, Atchison 



JOHN j. INGALLS 

A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



INTRODUCTION 



John J. Ingalls is, without doubt, the 
most distinguished statesman, the most 
brilliant orator, and the most fluent and 
versatile writer that the state of Kansas 
has ever produced. No citizen of Kansas 
has ever represented this commonwealth 
so ably in the deliberative councils and 
in the legislative forum of the Republic, 
or received such honorable recognition 
from his fellow-citizens in the state and 
in the nation, as has the man whose event- 
ful life, distinguished public services, 
and peculiar personal characteristics, it 



10 JOHN J. IXGALLS 

is the purpose of this essay briefly to trace 
and portray. While such a sketch must, 
however, of necessity be very condensed 
and incomplete, it is yet hoped that what 
little may be here presented from the 
mass of available material and authori- 
tative data at hand, may be so carefully 
selected and so skillfully ordered as to 
form at once a review that is interesting 
and instructive, and an estimate which, 
however inadequate, may not be alto- 
gether unjust. 

History, indeed, is largely composed 
of biography, and consists chiefly of a 
record of the achievements of great 
men, or of the movements and events 
in which great men were the foremost 
leaders and the principal actors; and 
the history of the past is revealed to us 
to a remarkable degree through the lives 
and deeds of the master-spirits who, 
consciously or unconsciously, have di- 
rected the trend of civilization into its 
modern channels, and have moulded and 



A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 1 1 

controlled, by their personal power and 
influence, the character and destiny of 
states and of nations. It has also been well 
said that " history is past politics ; pol- 
itics, present history." Examined from 
these points of view, a study of the lives 
and deeds of our prominent public men 
can not fail to prove highly interesting 
and truly profitable. 

The professional and political career 
of John J. Ingalls is contemporaneous 
with the entire history of the state of 
Kansas, and is closely identified with 
the industrial development and the po- 
litical vicissitudes of the same ; while 
for over two decades, he has beeu one 
of the ablest, most popular, most unique, 
and most influential figures identified 
with the political affairs, the economic 
questions, and the social problems of the 
entire American nation. 

HIS ANCESTRY 

Ex-Senator Ingalls is the direct de- 
scendant of two noted Puritan families. 



12 JOHN J. INGALLS 

coming on both his father's and his 
mother's side "from an unbroken strain 
of Puritan blood without any intermix- 
ture." His original ancestor on his 
father's side was Edmund Ingalls, who, 
with his brother Francis, came over 
from Yorkshire, England, in 1628, and 
founded the city of Lynn, Massachusetts. 
His father was Elias T. Ingalls, of Ha- 
verhill, Massachusetts, who was char- 
acterized as "a typical New Englander 
— aristocratic, austere, devout, scholarly 
— successful in business and respected 
by all." Mebitabel Ingalls, a first cousin 
of Elias T. Ingalls, was President Gar- 
field's grandmother. On his mother's 
side, Mr. Ingalls is related to the noted 
Chase family, of which the late Chief- 
Justice, Salmon P. Chase, was a promi- 
nent member. The original member of 
this family was Aquila Chase, who came 
to America in 1630 and settled in New 
Hampshire. His mother, whose maiden 
name was Eliza Chase, is still living- ut 



A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 13 

Haverhill, Massachusetts, at the ad- 
vanced age of eighty-four years. 

BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE 

John James Ingalls was born at Mid- 
dleton, Essex County, Massachusetts, 
December 29, 1833. He was the oldest 
of nine children, and is said to have been 
a "delicate child," u precocious in his 
intellectual development," and able to 
read intelligently when but two years 
old. At the same time, his "disposition 
was excessively sensitive, shy, and diffi- 
dent," without giving any promise of the 
" virility and audacity" that have char- 
acterized his later career. He was edu- 
cated in the public schools until he was 
sixteen, after which time he continued 
his studies preparatory for college under 
a private tutor. His literary genius had 
begun to manifest itself before he left 
the public schools, and his "earliest in- 
tellectual activity found expression in 



14 JOHN J. IN G ALLS' 

years of age, he was "an occasional 
contributor to local and metropolitan 
newspapers, but always anonymously." 

AT COLLEGE 

He entered Williams College, at Wil- 
liamstown, Massachusetts, in September, 
1851, of which institution Dr. Mark 
Hopkins, at this time in the prime of 
his remarkable intellectual activity, was 
then President. Many of Mr. Ingalls' 
fellow-students at Williams "afterward 
achieved distinction and even prominence 
in political and other walks of life," the 
most famous of them being, no doubt, 
his distant kinsman, James A. Garfield, 
who was one year behind him in the 
collegiate course. After parting at col- 
lego, the two friends did not meet again 
for eighteen years, when Mr. Ingalls 
was serving his first term in the Senate, 
and Garfield, who " had changed beyond 
recognition," " was a recognized leader 
and power in the House. Their old 



A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 15 

friendship, thus renewed, was warm and 
constant until Garfield's tragic death." 

AFTER GRADUATION 

After his graduation from college in 
1855, Mr. Ingalls entered upon the study 
of law, and was admitted to the bar in 
his native county of Essex in 1857. The 
bold and fearless character of the states- 
man and the politician had begun to be 
foreshadowed in the college student, 
especially toward the close of his 
academic career. Into his graduating 
i nation he incorporated views that were 
objectionable to the faculty, and which 
were cut out when the authorities re- 
vised his commencement production. 
When he came to deliver it, however, 
he spoke it as originally written, for 
which offense his diploma was withheld 
until 1864, after he had begun to make 
a name for himself in the West. Twenty 
years after granting him his first 
diploma, his Alma Mater honored him 



1 6 JOHN J. INGALLS 



and itself by conferring upon him the 
degree of Doctor of Laws. 



EMIGRATION WEST 

Allured by a highly colored litho- 
graph — a copy of which forms a much 
treasured ornament in a conspicuous 
place on the wall above the mantel- 
piece of his library — Mr. Ingalls emi- 
grated to Kansas in the fall of 1858, and 
took up his abode at Sumner, a town 
founded by an enthusiastic adventurer 
from Massachusetts, John P. Wheeler 
by name, who had come to Kansas two 
or three years before this time. Sumner 
was located about three miles below 
Atchison, on the western bank of the 
Missouri river ; was established as a 
rival free state settlement to Atchison, 
which was controlled by pro-slavery 
sympathizers ; and at this time had a 
population of about two thousand, live 
hundred more than Atchison. Here 
Mr. Ingalls began to practice law, but 



A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 17 

Sumner, being a "boom" town, had be- 
gun to decline before his arrival, and 
soon after became a veritable "deserted 
village," most of its population moving 
to Atchison, which had the advantage 
of a more favorable location, and had 
been built up by a more natural and 
substantial growth. In 1860, a tornado 
finally wrecked this ill-fated town, and 
Mr. Ingalls, though one of the last to 
desert it, also moved to Atchison and 
opened his law office in that town. He 
still has the official seal of Sumner in his 
possession ; its motto reads, Pro lege et 
grege. 

EARLY POLITICAL CAREER 

Meanwhile, the future statesman had 
entered upon his political career, and 
was winning rapid promotion. In 1859, 
he served as a delegate to the Wyan- 
dotte Constitutional Convention. In 
1860, he was Secretary of the Territorial 
Council. In 1861, he was Secretary of 



1 8 JOHN J. IN GALLS 

the State Senate. In 1862, he was 
elected a member of the State Senate 
from Atchison county. And changing 
his activities from the political to the 
military field, he served as Major, Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel, and Judge Advocate of 
Kansas Volunteers from 1863 to 1865. 
In 1862, and again in 1864, he also ran 
as a candidate for Lieutenant-Governor 
on what was then known as the "Union 
State Ticket," in revolt against the 
arrogant assumptions of such tyrannical 
political demagogues as " Jim" Lane 
and his followers, whose overthrow was 
not accomplished until 1866. For this 
coarse, Mr. Ingalls was accused of be- 
ing disloyal to his party, but the circum- 
stances seem to have made his attitude 
not only justifiable, but praiseworthy as 
well. 

EARLY LITERARY EFFORTS 

"For eight } r ears after the war," 
writes J. W. D. Anderson, "Mr. 
Insralls devoted himself to newspaper 



A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 10 

and general literary work — indeed, it 
was as a literary man that he first made 
a state reputation. We learned to 
know and admire the classical style, 
the incisive method, the wealth of words, 
and the fulness of information which 
have since made him so noted as an 
orator. Much of this literary work was 
in praise of Kansas, and as a genuine 
affection is nearly always returned in 
kind, Kansas soon came to love and to 
delight to do him honor." For three 
years he was editor of the Atchison 
Champion, "and subsequently won 
national reputation by a series of bril- 
liant magazine articles upon themes of 
western life and adventure," the most 
noted of which were entitled "Catfish 
Aristocracy," " Bluegrass," " Regis 
Loisel," and "Cleveland, the Last of the 
Jay hawkers." 

SUGGESTS GREAT SEAL 

It is also of interest to note in this 
connection that Mr. Walls suggested 



20 JOHN J. ING ALLS 

the original design for the great seal of 
Kansas upon the admission of the state 
into the Union, together with the motto, 
Ad astra per aspera ( u To the stars 
through difficulties"). Unfortunately, 
however, the simplicity and beauty of 
his original design were marred by the 
committee to whom it was submitted 
for adoption. The history of this em- 
blematic device can best be given in 
ex-Senator Ingalls' own characteristic 
words : 

"I was Secretary of the Kansas State Sen- 
ate at its first session, after our admission in 
1861. A joint committee was appointed to 
present a design for the great seal of the 
state, and I suggested a sketch embracing a 
single star rising from the clouds at the base 
of a field, with the constellation (representing 
the number of states then in the Union) 
above, accompanied by the motto, Ad astra 
per aspera. 

"If you will examine the seal as it now 
exists, you will see that my idea was adopted, 
but in addition thereto, the committee in- 
corporated a mountain scene, a river view, a 
herd of buffalo chased by Indians on horse- 



A BIO OR A PHICA L SKE TCH 2 1 

back, a log cabin with a settler plowing in 
the foreground, together with a number of 
other incongruous, allegorical and metaphor- 
ical augmentations, which destroyed the 
beauty and simplicity of my design. 

" The clouds at the base were intended to 
represent the perils and troubles of our ter- 
ritorial history; the star emerging therefrom, 
the new state ; the constellation, like that on 
the flag, the Union, to which, after a stormy 
struggle, it had been admitted." 

ELECTION TO THE SENATE 

The first election of Mr. Ingalls to 
the National Senate, in 1873, came almost 
as a surprise to himself and his friends. 
Senator S. C. Pomeroy was a candidate 
for re-election, but he was suspected of 
dishonesty by some of the members of 
the State Legislature. His support, 
however, was so strong that there was no 
hope of defeating him, and the opposi- 
tion in his party had not even united on 
a candidate. On the day that the houses 
met in joint session, State Senator York 
secured the floor, accused Senator 



22 JOHN J. 1 Nil ALLS 

Poineroy of bribery, exposed the fact 
that he had offered to himself (State 
Senator York) seven thousand dollars 
for his vote, and carried the money to 
the presiding officer's desk, requesting 
that it be used in prosecuting the 
offender. This sensation at once turned 
the tide away from Pomeroy, and Mr. 
Ingalls, who was in Topeka to argue a 
case before the Supreme Court, and 
who had received but one vote in caucus 
the day before, at once became a favor- 
ite candidate, and was elected upon the 
first ballot. 

CAREER IN THE SENATE 

Ex-Senator Ingalls' career in the up- 
per chamber of Congress is so well 
known that it may be rapidly passed in 
review in this sketch. His record was 
so satisfactory to his constituents that 
he was returned to his seat in 1879, and 
again in 1885. Jn 1887, after the death 
of Vice President Hendricks, he was 



A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 2 3 

unanimously elected President pro tem- 
pore of the Senate, and this election was 
later, by a special rule which has since 
been followed, made permanent until 
the inauguration of a new Vice Presi- 
dent ; or until, in case the Vice President 
is living, the Senate should have changed 
its political complexion. While Senator 
Ingalls, therefore, was President of the 
Senate, he enjoyed all the honor, dignity, 
and distinction pertaining to the office 
of Vice President, and his family was 
accorded all the social precedence and 
recognition belonging to this position. 

His public utterances upon the floor 
of the Senate were invariably marked 
by strong partisan bias, and his political 
opponents were frequently made to wince 
under his caustic and penetrating criti- 
cism and his flood of withering sarcasm; 
but yet his speeches were, at the same 
time, always characterized by a certain 
distinctive individuality and independ- 
ence that marked the quality of their 



24 JO II X J. 1 NG ALLS 

style and thought as being peculiarly 
his own. When, however, he was ele- 
vated to the office of Acting Vice Presi- 
dent, he at once rose to the full measure 
and dignity of the high position to which 
his fellow-Senators had chosen him ; and 
as President of the Senate, he performed 
the functions of that office with unusual 
grace and with absolute impartiality. 

The defeat of the famous "Force 
Bill," which Speaker Reed had pushed 
with characteristic dispatch through the 
House, was attributed by many of his 
party colleagues to Senator Ingalls. 
When he w T as requested to lend his aid 
as presiding officer to force the bill 
through the Senate, he " peremptorily 
refused to play this role," and sharply 
rebuked those who were attempting to 
resort to tactics not in keeping with the 
dignity of the Senate. 

HONORED BY HIS COLLEAGUES 

As a mark of their high respect and 



A BIOGRAPHICAL SHETCH 2 5 

of their appreciation of his uniformly 
"calm, impartial, and judicial" attitude 
as their presiding officer, the Senators, 
upon his retirement as President of the 
Senate, presented him with the clock 
that had counted time for the Senate 
from 1852 to 1890, which memento now 
adorns the wall above the landing of the 
stairway in the spacious hall of the Ex- 
Senator's residence ; while upon the wall 
of his library, artistically engrossed and 
appropriately framed, is found the orig- 
inal copy of the following resolution, 
upon which comment would be super- 
fluous : 

" Resolved, That the thanks of the Sen- 
ate are due, and are hereby tendered, to 
Hon. John J. Ingalls, a Senator from the 
State of Kansas, for the eminently courte- 
ous, dignified, able, and absolutely impartial 
manner in which he has presided over the 
deliberations and performed the duties of 
President pro tempore of the Senate. 

Attest : Anson G-. McCook, 

Secretary." 



2 6 JOHN J. INGALLS 

SPEECHES IN THE SENATE 

Mr. Ingalls first won national fame as 
an orator while serving in the Senate, 
and many of his forensic efforts upon 
the floor of that body will never be for- 
gotten. Whenever it was announced 
that the eloquent Senator from Kansas 
was to make a speech, the galleries and 
corridors of the Senate chamber were 
always crowded, and those who were so 
fortunate as to hear him, never came in 
vain. His speeches on "The Race 
Problem" and "The Financial Ques- 
tion," his eulogies on Senator Hill of 
Georgia and on Congressman Burnes of 
Missouri, and his debates with Senators 
Voorhees and Blackburn, are among his 
best known oratorical efforts in the 
Senate. 

Concerning his well known reply to 
Senator Voorhees, it is worthy of men- 
tion that ex-Senator Installs regards it 
as ' the least creditable of all his per- 
formances, though it is undoubtedly the 



A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 2 7 

best remembered of all his public utter- 
ances ; and he regrets that the occasion 
made such a speech in the Senate neces- 
sary.' He also claims that his criticisms 
of McClellan and Hancock had reference, 
not to their military records, but to their 
political attitudes, and that his remarks 
were perverted by his political opponents 
for the purpose of placing him u into a 
very disagreeable position." 

COMMAND OF LANGUAGE 

His command of language is remark- 
able, and his sparkling wealth of words 
seems to come to him as easily and as 
naturally as the poverty of language is 
a prevailing characteristic of most of his 
fellow-beings. He is equally fluent in 
conversation, upon the platform, or 
with his pen. A prominent newspa pel- 
correspondent, in reporting a recent in- 
terview with him, bears the following 
testimony to his wonderful conversa- 
tional powers : 



2 8 JOHN J. TNG ALLS 

" Mr. Ingalls' language is so exact, 
his words balance his meaning so nicely, 
that the average conversational sloven — 
and very few are not slovens in conver- 
sation — listen to the Kansas statesman, 
first with surprise, then with gratifica- 
tion, and finally with a strong ambition 
to emulate his niceties of speech. I 
defy any man of average conversational 
eapacit}' to hold a thirty minutes' con- 
versation with Mr. Ingalls without find- 
ing new powers of expression at the 
command of his own tongue." 

ORATORICAL STYLE 

As a public speaker, however, Mr. 
Ingalls' powers of expression seem to 
have attained their greatest range and 
their highest development. He is, 
moreover, a scholar, a philosophical 
thinker, and a close student of our 
social and political problems, as well as 
an orator and rhetorician. Many of his 
oratorical productions, viewed in the light 



A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 2 9 

of their magnificent and forcible style, as 
also with reference to their thought con- 
tent, may, indeed, be termed " classical. 1 ' 
A characteristic passage, taken from the 
introduction to his eulogy on Congress- 
man Burnes, is here inserted for the sake 
of illustration : 

"In the democracy of the dead all men at 
last are equal. There is neither raDk nor 
station nor prerogative in the republic of 
the grave. At this fatal threshold the phi- 
losopher ceases to be wise, and the song of 
the poet is silent. Dives relinquishes his 
millions, and Lazarus his rags. The poor 
man is as rich as the richest, and the rich 
man is as poor as the pauper. The creditor 
loses his usury, and the debtor is acquitted 
of his obligation. There the proud man 
surrenders his dignities, the politician his 
honors, the worldling his pleasures ; the in- 
valid needs no physician, and the laborer 
rests from unrequited toil. Here at last is 
Nature's final decree in equity. The wrongs 
of time are redressed, injustice is expiated, 
the irony of fate is refuted, the unequal dis- 
tribution of wealth, honor, capacity, pleas- 
ure, and opportunity, which makes life so 
cruel and inexplicable a tragedy, ceases in 



3 JOHN J. IN G ALLS 

the realm of death. The strongest there has 
no supremacy, and the weakest needs no 
defense. The mightiest captain succumbs 
to the invincible adversary who disarms 
alike the victor and the vanquished." 

In a similar compact, epigrammatic 
style, is his oft-quoted estimate of Lin- 
coln : 

"Abraham Lincoln, the greatest [leader] 
of all, had the humblest origin and the scan- 
tiest scholarship. Yet he surpassed all ora- 
tors in eloqueuce, all diplomatists in wis- 
dom, all statesmen in foresight, and the most 
ambitious in fame." 

LITERARY STYLE 

The limits of this essay will permit 
the insertion of but two specimens from 
his more purely literary productions not 
composed for public delivery — one in 
poetry and one in prose — and both 
written since his retirement to private 
life. The first is a sonnet entitled "Op- 
portunity," the original draft of which 
was written on the back of an envelope 
in traveling on a train from Kansas to 



A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 31 

Washington, and which appeared in fac 
simile manuscript form in the New York 
Truth, in February, 1891. The arrange- 
ment of the lines here given follows the 
original copy of the poem : 

OPPORTUNITY. 

" Master of human destinies am I! 

Fame, love and fortune on my footsteps wait. 
Cities and fields I walk : I penetrate 

Deserts and seas remote, and passing by 
Hovel and mart and palace, soon or late 
I knock unbidden once at every gate! 

If sleeping, wake; if feasting, rise before 
I turn away. It is the hour of fate. 
And they who follow me reach every state 
Mortals desire, and conquer every foe 

Save death; but those who doubt or hesitate, 
Condemned to failure, penury and woe, 

Seek me in vain and uselessly implore . 

I answer not, and I return no more! " 

As a good specimen of his prose 
literary style, the following paragraph, 
contributed in 1893 to a symposium by 
our leading literary men and women on 
4 'How to be Happy," is here inserted : 

i% Happiness is an endowment and not an 
acquisition. It depends more upon tempera- 
ment and disposition than environment. It 



3 2 JOHN J. JXG ALLS 

is a state or condition of mind, and not a 
commodity to be bought or sold in the mar- 
ket. A beggar may be happier in his rags 
than a king in his purple. Poverty is no 
more incompatible with happiness than 
wealth, and the inquiry how to be happy, 
though poor, implies a want of understanding 
of the conditions upon which happiness de- 
pends. Dives was not happy because he was 
a millionaire, nor Lazarus wretched because 
he was a pauper. There is a quality in the 
soul of man that is superior to circumstances, 
and that defies calamity and misfortune. 
The man who is unhappy when he is poor 
would be unhappy if he were rich, and he 
who is happy in a palace in Paris would be 
happy in a dug-out on the frontier of Dakota. 
" There are as many unhappy rich men as 
there are unhappy poor men. Every heart 
knows its own bitterness and its own joy. Not 
that wealth and what it brings is not desirable 
—books, travel, leisure, comfort, the best 
food and raiment, agreeable companionship— 
but all these do not necessarily bring happi- 
ness, and may co-exist with the deepest 
wretchedness ; while adversity and penury, 
exile and privation, are not incompatible 
with the loftiest exuitations of the soul. 

1 More true joy Marcellus exiled feels, 
Than Caesar with a Senate at his heels.' " 



A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 3 3 



When Senator Ingalls fell a victim to 
the Populist upheaval in Kansas in 1891, 
and was obliged, much to the regret of 
the country at large, to yield his seat in 
the Senate to Mr. Peffer, his political 
adversaries took delight to refer to him 
by his self-applied title of u a statesman 
without a job." In this respect, how- 
ever, their expectations were not real- 
ized, for the man of genius and industry 
is never out of employment. The}' failed 
to recognize that a statesman must not 
necessarily hold public office in order 
to be either successfully or advantage- 
ously employed, and that if his services 
as a public man have been of consequence, 
men will not likely let his talents remain 
unemployed as a private citizen. Upon 
his retirement from public life, Mr. In- 
galls had a number of exceedingly tempt- 
ing offers — both in the East and in the 
West — to accept the editorship of prom- 
inent newspapers, all of which he de- 



34 JOHN J. INGALLS 

clined, mainly because their acceptance 
would require him to transfer his family 
and his citizenship out of his adopted 
state. 

WRITES FOR THE PRESS 

After his return from a trip to Eu- 
rope, his library, his pen, and the lecture 
platform, have profitably occupied his 
time and talents, and a number of timely 
articles upon the principal economic, 
political, and social questions of the 
period, have appeared from his pen in 
the leading periodicals of the country. 
Among his more practical articles, may 
be named those on u The East and the 
West," "Politics and Newspapers," 
"Immigration," "Politics," "The So- 
cial Malady," "Capital and Labor," and 
"Oar Political Parties;" among his 
more purely literary essays, those on 
"Oratory," "Blaine," "The Tragedy 
of '81" (Garfield), and "The White 
City" deserve special mention. 



A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 3 5 

HIS ESSAYS 

His essays are always in great demand, 
are said to " command larger prices than 
those of any other man in America, with 
the exception of Oliver Wendell Holmes 
and James Russell Lowell," and are not 
only intensely interesting, but highly 
instructive as well. They do not ex- 
press ideas merely struck off at random, 
but embody the valuable results and con- 
clusions of years of faithful study and 
ripe experience. It is a real misfortune 
that these writings are not extant in 
collected form, and that they are only 
accessible in the tiles of the papers and 
magazines in which they were first pub- 
lished, or in clippings from the same. 

AS A PLATFORM LECTURER 

Mr. In^alls has also been in great de- 
mand as a popular platform lecturer 
since retiring from the Senate, his ser- 
vices in this capacity command the very 



3 6 JOHN J. INGALLS 

highest prices, and as a lecturer and 
orator he has probably only two peers 
on the American platform — Depew and 
Watterson. This field of activity opened 
to him spontaneously, unsought by 
himself, and contrary to the usual ex- 
perience of the successful orator, it is, 
strange to say, absolutely distasteful to 
him. In a recent interview he ex- 
pressed himself as follows on this sub- 
ject, and his own words are quoted here 
because they help to reveal one of the 
characteristics of the man : 

" I have a dread of public speaking. When 
I approach the place where I am to ma&e a 
speech or deliver a lecture, I am filled with 
a nameless terror. Sometimes it becomes 
almost uncontrollable, and I am tempted to 
turn and fly. For more then twenty years, 
at the bar, on the stump, on the platform, 
and in the Senate, I have practiced the art, 
but the trepidation is as great now as when 
I began. But for this drawback, I should 
enjoy lecturing, because it brings one in con- 
tact with the best people of many communi- 
ties ; and my engagements are so arranged 
that the traveling is not arduous." 



A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 3 7 

Mr. Ingalls' platform lectures are not 
cast into any stereotyped form, are al- 
ways related to our current political and 
social problems, and as he is a student 
of all affairs of public interest, and "of 
the changing times," he gives to his 
lectures "a contemporary flavor from 
day to day through his knowledge of 
current public affairs." The subjects of 
his principal lectures are " Plutocracy 
and Anarchy," "Dives and Lazarus," 
"Political and Social Problems of Our 
Second Century," and "Garfield." It 
is worthy of mention in this connection 
that ex-Senator Ingalls never permits 
tickets to be sold, or gate money to be 
taken, for any speeches that he delivers 
in Kansas. This rule he violated but 
once, and then permitted himself to do 
so, not for his own profit, but to help to 
raise funds to clear a charitable institu- 
tion from debt. 

PERSONAL TRAITS 

The tastes of a man are always a good 



3 8 JOHN J. INGALLS 

index to his character. The clothes he 
wears, the company he keeps, and the 
books he reads and ponders — these de- 
clare the man. Mr. Ingalls is tall and 
striking in his personal appearance ; 
dignified and self-possessed, yet withal 
friendly and polite, in his demeanor ; 
and while affecting some peculiarities of 
dress, always dresses tastefully and 
well. While he would not permit any 
one to make free with him in the sense 
in which some men suppose good 
fellow-ship must be cultivated, he is yet 
approachable by the humblest laborer as 
easily as by the most exalted in rank, 
position, and influence. He is neither 
the "aristocrat" that he is sometimes 
represented to be, nor yet the "agricul- 
turist" in the sense in which he is repre- 
sented to be such. He personally super- 
intends the care of his lawns and 
orchards, but he does not engage in 
"farming." He enjoys exercise in the 
open air, and horseback riding is his 
favorite physical recreation. 




w 

o ■-» 

Q a 

— x. 



,f^^ 




A BIO GRA PHICA L SHETCH 3 9 

LITERARY TASTES 

Ex-Senator Ingalls' literary tastes are 
of the highest classical order, and his 
reading is confined almost entirely to 
the standard authors in English and 
American literature. The Book of Job, 
Shakespeare — especially "Hamlet," 
Gray's "Elegy," Shelley's "Skylark," 
Keat's "Eve of St. Agnes," Longfel- 
low's Poems, Hawthorne's "Scarlet 
Letter," Dickens' "Pickwick Papers," 
and Drummond's "Natural Law in the 
Spiritual World " — these, with others 
by the same authors, and by other stand- 
ard authors of the same class, form his 
favorite reading; and the continued 
reading and study of such literature 
doubtless, in a measure, accounts for his 
Yaried vocabulary, his own fine literary 
style, and for his pure literary tastes. 



"Oak Ridge," located on a slightly 
wooded elevation overlooking the city of 



40 JOHN J. 1NGALL8 

Atchison from the southwest, is the 
name given to Mr. Ingalls' beautiful and 
cultured home. His former home, lo- 
cated on the bluffs of the Missouri river, 
was destroyed by fire, and with it most 
of his valuable library and unpublished 
manuscripts, while he was living with 
his family at Washington. He bought 
u Oak Ridge" upon his return to Kan- 
sas, and here, removed somewhat from 
the commercial turmoil of the city, he 
enjoys with his family one of the most 
refined and most comfortable homes 
in Atchison. He is the father of eleven 
children, seven of whom — three sons 
and four daughters — are still living. 
Mrs. Ingalls, to whom the Senator has 
always been a hero, has been to him a 
most loyal wife and helpful companion, 
and is, moreover, a most faithful and 
devoted mother to her family, and an 
ideal housekeeper in the management of 
her home and in the education and con- 
trol of her children. By the salutory 



A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 4 1 

power and influence that Mrs. Ingalls is 
so constantly exerting over her family, 
the domestic side of Senator Ingalls' 
home, in spite of his long career in 
public life, has not suffered in the least. 
His home is a cheerful and happy one, 
in which the higher literary and artistic 
tastes, and the nobler ideals of life, are 
assiduously cultivated, and in which the 
bond of affection is sincere and strong. 

CONCLUSION 

The historian of contemporaneous 
events, or the biographer of men still 
living, can record facts and events, and 
he may even express his individual opin- 
ion of their character, their relations, 
and their importance, but he can do lit- 
tle more than this. The principal ser- 
vice that he can perform— and it is im- 
portant that he should always perform 
this faithfully and well— is to gather the 
material which the future historian and 
biographer must have in order to enable 



4 2 JOHN J. INGALLS 

them to write the final account, and to 
formulate the final estimate, of men, 
events, and movements, after long years 
have elapsed, after the passions and 
prejudices of the present have passed 
away, and after unerring time has sifted 
what is fundamental and enduring from 
that which is merely adventitious and 
transitory. This final account will be 
written some time ; and, whether sooner 
or later, whenever it is written, it will 
be approximately true and just. 

The contemporary chronicler must, 
therefore, be sure to make his record as 
complete and accurate as possible, and 
he has rendered his best service to pos- 
terity when that has been accomplished. 
How much of what he has gleaned will 
be gathered into the final repository, 
how much will be discarded, what will 
be the relative value of what is pre- 
served, and how much will ultimately 
be added thereto, the future alone can 
definitely make known. 



A BIO GRA PHICA L SKE TCI I 4 3 

This should not, however, in the least 
discourage the historian or the biogra- 
pher from making a close, intelligent, 
and unprejudiced study of the leaders 
of his day — whether he adopts all their 
opinions, and accepts all their conclu- 
sions, or not — and also of the various 
events and tendencies of his own time. 
The historian of the past has furnished 
him with the data which he must have 
to enable him to form his own estimate, 
and thus help to form the final estimate, 
of the history of the past ; and since the 
historic chain has never been brokeu, 
and never will be, he can go on linking 
event to event, cause to effect, and con- 
sequent to antecedent, and so may even 
in his own day, to some extent, estimate 
the influence of contemporaneous actors 
and events upon their own period, and 
may also approximate their probable 
effect upon the development of the fu- 
ture. 

The study of human life and destiuy, 



44 A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

whether iu the concrete or in the ab- 
stract, in the individual or in collective 
society, is always of the highest interest 
and importance ; and the more it is 
pursued without bias or prejudice, the 
more profitable the results will be for 
ourselves, and the more valuable for 
posterity. 

In such a philosophic spirit of historic 
inquiry, this biographical sketch has 
been written ; and however great its in- 
accuracies and short-comings may be, 
the study would not prove entirely in 
vain, even though no one but the writer 
himself should derive any benefit from 
the effort. Such efforts, however, are 
at no time in vain, if the motives that 
incite to them are honest and right ; nor 
can a life so full of varied effort and 
exalted activity as John J. Ingalls' event- 
ful and distinguished career has been, 
fail to leave its lasting impress upon the 
age and the nation in which he lives, or 
to be a powerful factor and influence in 



A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 4 5 

giving direction to the life and charac- 
ter, and in shaping the destiny and wel- 
fare of the American people in the 
future. 

The final history of the latter half of 
the nineteenth century, and the final 
estimate of the character and achieve- 
ments of the leading public men of this 
period, will not be written during the 
life-time of the present generation, and 
they may not be written until a number 
of generations shall have passed away ; 
but whenever the final account shall 
have been formulated, and whenever 
the final estimate of the most dis- 
tinguished statesmen and foremost 
leaders of this epoch shall have been 
made, the name and fame of John J. 
Ingalls w 7 ill occupy a unique and con- 
spicuous place among the list of illustri- 
ous Americans of this eventful age who 
loved their country most and served her 
interests best. 











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